


heavy in your arms

by zjofierose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5 Times, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, True Love, except for s8, season 8 we don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: Five times Keith carried Shiro, and one time Shiro carried Keith.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 137
Collections: Sheithlentines 2020





	heavy in your arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kokirane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokirane/gifts).



> A Sheithlentines pinch-hit fic for @kokirane - I hope it suits!
> 
> Many thanks to @kettish for the lightning beta! <3

1)

“Jesus _Christ_ , Shiro, how much do you _weigh_?” Keith wheezes, staggering under the unbalanced weight of Shiro’s overgrown muscles as Shiro meanders happily down the road, singing softly to himself. He’s utterly tone-deaf; Keith can’t even tell what song he’s singing, but it’s still annoyingly endearing just like everything else about Shiro. 

“A lot,” Matt Holt answers the rhetorical question through gritted teeth from where he’s tucked under Shiro’s other armpit, attempting to steer them slowly back to the dorms. “The answer is, he weighs _a lot_.”

“No shit, Holt,” Keith rolls his eyes, hanging on for dear life as Shiro stumbles off the curb. “Whose brilliant idea was it to get him wasted tonight, anyway? Oh, that’s right!” Keith gasps in feigned remembrance. “It was yours!”

“Hmph,” Matt sniffs, “yes, but _you_ were the one who came crying to me after a whole week of suffering through post-break-up Shiro sad-faces and begged me to fix him.”

Keith barely makes the turn as Shiro dives for a nearby trashcan, ducking out from under Shiro’s arm just in time to avoid having his face rammed into the metal side. He makes a face as Shiro retches. “Yeah, and look how well that turned out.” 

“Well, I mean.” Matt straightens up, making a show of stretching his back as he gestures to where Shiro is facedown in the bin and busily practicing his dinosaur calls. “I don’t think he even remembers Adam’s name right now, so.”

Keith watches Shiro’s shaking form and sighs, crossing his arms. “Point,” he says, and they fist-bump solemnly.

2)

It’s the adrenaline that helps Keith heft Shiro off the table with relative ease, barely noticing his weight, barely noticing that it’s become more since he’s been gone, especially with the added heft of the metal arm. Lance is babbling away about something at top volume, grabbing at Shiro’s form, but all Keith can feel is Shiro pressed against him, all he can hear is Shiro’s irregular breathing in his ear. 

They make it to Keith's house in one piece, which is a minor miracle. Keith hadn’t given himself time to wonder whether they’d make the jump, but in hindsight, well. As far as he can tell, they’ve also thrown their tail; no helicopters are circling, there are no lights coming down the drive. They might be safe, at least for the moment, which is all he's really asking. Lance and Pidge are already off the hoverbike and running ahead, continual sources of noise and chaos. He can hear them erupting with ongoing commentary on Keith’s shack, his piloting, his mullet, anything and everything that catches their interest. It’s exhausting, and Keith’s already been exhausted for more than a year at this point.

Hunk helps him get Shiro off the bike without dropping him, and supports Shiro’s other side in careful silence as Keith guides them up the steps and into the house. Keith leaves Hunk at the bottom of the narrow staircase, hefting Shiro’s unconscious form in a fireman’s carry and ascending into the darkness. 

His thighs are going to feel the burn tomorrow, but he can’t even begin to bring himself to care. Not when Shiro’s here. Not when Shiro’s back.

3) 

It’s a level of desperation Keith’s not sure he’s felt since he saw Shiro’s ship falling from the sky into the desert outside his home, but hearing the way that Shiro’s getting winded even just talking to him is lighting up alarm bells all throughout Keith’s brain. 

He’s trying to get there as fast as he can, running on sheer autopilot, letting his heart and his gut guide him to Shiro’s voice as much as his suit’s mapping tech, but he can barely breathe himself with the fear that it won’t be fast enough. The wasteland between them seems endless, and just as he gets close, there’s a bottomless gorge, and Keith’s really not into allegory, okay? 

They make it in the end, him and Black, and Shiro is saved from the purple komodo-dragon-alien-things just in time. It’s enough, for Keith, for now; they made it in time, and now they’re together, even if the universe does seem to keep trying to split them apart. Shiro is saved, and then they’re in the lion, and Shiro’s weak, Shiro’s injured, but Shiro’s going to be okay. 

Keith will make sure that Shiro’s going to be okay. 

He hoists Shiro carefully into one of the bunks in the back, settling him comfortably and pulling off his armor. He doesn’t know how to treat Shiro’s wound other than to take him back to Allura, but he works a pillow under Shiro’s head and shoulders, tucks a blanket around his legs, brings him a cup of water. He keeps Shiro safe, keeps him breathing, until he can lift Shiro in his arms and carry him onto the castleship, taking him under Allura’s direction straight into a healing pod.

4)

It feels like he’s given up hope, even if his actions say otherwise, even if he refuses to _ever_ give up on this - crisscrossing space, searching, endlessly, for any sliver of hope that Shiro might be out here, somewhere. It’s not even logical; Shiro could be _anywhere_ , really, or nowhere. If there’s one thing that Keith has learned out here, it’s that literally anything he can imagine is probably possible, and many things it would never even occur to him to imagine besides. For all Keith knows, Shiro is in another time, another space, another plane of existence entirely.

And yet. He can’t not look.

There’s nothing special about the moment when it happens, except that _everything_ is special about it, because it’s the moment that he finds Shiro. Suddenly the world starts to spin again, the stars return to their courses, and Keith feels like he can breathe all the way into the bottom of his lungs in a way he hasn’t for months. 

Shiro is weak; he’s dehydrated and hungry and nearly out of air, so Keith drapes him over his own back and carries him into the lion, and Shiro doesn’t even protest. 

He does the same when they arrive at the castleship, pulling Shiro’s arms over his shoulders and lifting him like a backpack as he walks out of the mouth of the lion. He waits while Shiro spends hours in a healing pod, then lets Shiro wrap an arm around his shoulders and supports him all the way back to his quarters. 

It’s hard to let go once they’ve arrived, hard to lower Shiro’s weight down into the bunk and step away, but Keith does, because Shiro needs to sleep and to heal. And when Shiro calls after him as he crosses through the doorway, he pauses, smiles, and tells the truth.

He’ll never stop trying to save Shiro.

5) 

Shiro’s weight in his arms is familiar, dense and heavy and it’s amazing to Keith how much the clone’s body feels like Shiro. It _is_ Shiro, he supposes, as much as anything - he’ll be the first to admit that he’s having trouble wrapping his head around the ins and outs of Shiro having been dead, but still here, but not really, and now… now all he wants is for Shiro to be truly _Shiro_ again. 

Hunk and Coran had both offered to help, had offered to either help Keith carry the unconscious form of the clone, or barring that, to bring a hover stretcher, but Keith had turned them down. He’s so much stronger now, grown into his Galra heritage, and it just feels right - this was the body he held onto as he hung from the disintegrating ring, this, the body he clutched as they fell. It’s this body he carried, limp and unconscious in his arms, when they returned, and it’s this body that Shiro needs in order to be himself again. 

He loops an arm around his shoulders and tucks Shiro’s hand into the back side of his armpit to hold it in place as he puts his arms under Shiro’s knees and around his back, lifting, and walks down to the surface where everyone waits. He doesn’t have to go far; Allura gestures him down, and he lays Shiro on the ground carefully, cradling his head and shoulders off the dirt. 

He can feel the moment that it begins, can feel the quintessence that rushes through Allura and the answering flicker in the body resting in his arms. He’s not sure if it’s his Galra heritage or something else, but he knows the second that Shiro’s consciousness clicks into place and the breath he takes is his own again. The shape of him _changes_ in some unidentifiable way and suddenly it’s _Shiro_ that Keith is holding again, Shiro in Keith’s arms where it feels like he belongs, and he can barely hold himself together as Shiro opens his eyes and smiles.

  
  


+1) 

“Mr. Kogane-Shirogane,” Keith says, a little bit drunk and a lot in love, bowing to Shiro as they arrive at the door of their house. Someone, he suspects Romelle, has hung bunting over their door that says “Just Married” in English, Galran, and Altean, and Shiro’s cheeks are flushed pink over the collar of his white tuxedo. Keith’s never seen anything so pretty, and he’s never going to be over it for as long as he lives. 

“Mr. Kogane-Shirogane,” Shiro answers, sweeping an even deeper bow to Keith, and over-balancing as he dips his head nearly to his knees, stumbling into Keith and clutching at Keith’s hips as he rights himself. “Oops,” Shiro says as he comes up, grin utterly unrepentant, and Keith has to kiss him.

Eventually they break apart to breathe, and Keith reaches forward to open the door. He’s about to step through, fingers tangled in Shiro’s shirtfront, when Shiro’s grip on his waist stops him. He looks up in confusion, and meets a blushing determination on his new husband’s face.

“What-” he starts, and Shiro’s mouth tips up in a lopsided grin. 

“You’re forgetting something, sweetheart,” he says, and bends down, reaching for Keith’s knees as he wraps an arm around Keith's shoulders.

Keith yelps and jumps out of his hold, backing away even as he laughs. “What? No!” he protests, “I am not your blushing bride! You are not carrying me over the threshold!”

The pout on Shiro’s face is a trap, and Keith should _definitely_ know better, but he’s champagne-drunk and high on the emotions of the day, and ever weak where Shiro is concerned. He steps forward, intending to kiss the sadness off Shiro’s mouth, when suddenly his world is upended as Shiro tosses him easily over his shoulder and walks through the doorway with a shout of triumph, Keith laughing and pounding on his back with equal vigor until Shiro tosses him onto the bed.

He’s still laughing even as Shiro leans in, face wreathed in delight, and presses their mouths together. “Welcome home,” Shiro whispers, and Keith wraps his arms around Shiro’s neck and pulls him down.

“Welcome home,” he replies, and then they do not speak anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> find me @zjofierose on all the things! comments are love uwu


End file.
